How Do You Properly Adjust A Door Closer?

Hi, I’m Tracy Switzer, President of Shelter Works. You know the door in your house probably opens in, but on industrial buildings, doors open out. Doors that open out are susceptible to wind damage. High winds can cause a lot of damage to a door. We build great doors; we put them on great stainless steel ball bearing hinges. We’ve got great hardware. But to really prevent damage, you’ve got to have a really good hydraulic door closer, and for that door closer to do its job, you’ve got to have it properly adjusted.

So today I’m going to ask you the question, “How do we properly adjust a door closer to prevent damage?” All of our doors come with these hydraulic closers, and we always provide the tools you need to adjust them and the manual to tell you how to adjust them. There are many adjustments you can make. Today I’m just going to talk about two of those adjustments. Number one is how to keep the door open when you want it to stay open, and the second one is how to make the door open to a soft stop.

From the factory, we always set the doors to have a hold open position at 90 degrees. That door will stay right there if I leave it like that. To adjust that degree, you either tighten or loosen this nut with this tool provided. So that nut goes right there, and you either tighten or loosen that nut, and the door will be allowed to swing farther open or not quite so far open.

Okay, so now I’m going to talk about how to adjust the door closer for a soft stop. And a soft stop is what prevents damage to the doors and the hardware. What we want to avoid is a door that’s allowed to gather the wind, swing freely 90 degrees, and then suddenly stop. So to prevent that there’s an adjustment called “back check.” The back check adjustment is either on the bottom or the top of the closure, depending on if it’s on the right or left hand. It’s clearly marked right here on the arm; there’s an “R” here. On a right hand arm, the adjustment’s on top. So in line with this hole, there’s a hole on top, and you would drop the allen wrench down into that hole, tighten it a few turns, maybe all the way tight, and if that’s done, the door will have more cushioning effect as it opens. So, now that I’ve adjusted it, when the door opens, it goes to about seventy degrees, and the rest of it is cushioned; it takes effort to push it the rest of the way. It goes to the full 90 degrees and locks and holds there.

An industrial door closer, when properly adjuste,d can extend the life of your building and prevent damage. So we urge you to check these out from time to time and make sure they’re properly adjusted. Remember, if it was built by Shelter Works, it was built for life.